Resurgam

Sie VOL. XIX

feet) No. III

A Magazine of Verse

DECEMBER 1921

RESURGAM*

I: BIRTH

O'T of the dust Thou hast raised me, God of the

living;

Out of the dust Thou hast raised me and brought me to

the light of morning.

My eyes are full of the wonders of creation,

And my spirit leaps within me.

I behold Thy glory lifted into mountains,

Thy kindness deepened into valleys,

Thy hospitable mercies poured unmeasured in the seas.

In plenteous ways Thou hast devised the telling of Thy

dreams,

Entreating beauty from the clay,

And quickening man from out his dusty silence.

*Copyright, 1921, by Louise Ayres Garnett. All rights reserved.

Thou floatest flakes of color in the air, and, breathing on

them,

Wingest them to life;

Thou callest the dazed leviathan up from the watery

reaches,

And summonest vasty creatures who come lumbering past,

Astonished at their being.

Who am I, Lord of Creation, that Thou shouldst think

upon me?

Beside a mountain or a soaring bird, what am I that Thou

shouldst give me place?

I can praise Thee, O God!

I can praise Thee to the summit of my singing;

With the flesh of me, with the breath of me, with the

height of me!

Increase my stature even as the trees,

Increase my stature till I pass the oak and glimpse the

towers of heaven!

With the waters of gratitude I brim my cup and pour it

at Thy feet; ,

For thou hast shared the gift of life, and my spirit sings

within me!

Il: LIFE

Into the noon of labor I go forth that I may reap my

destiny.

Sorrow is my lot, and labor my achievement,

The beauty of God's handiwork my compensation.

Something within me springs like a fountain and urges me

to joy;

Sorrow is as beauty and labor as reward.

Thou art become a greater God, O God, because of my

endeavor.

Listen through my ears, Thou of my singing sanctuary,

Listen through my ears that I hear Thy silent music;

Look through my eyes that I vision the unseen;

Speak through my lips that I utter words of gladness.

Walk Thou with me, work Thou through me, rest Thou

in me,

That I may make Thee manifest in all my ways.

I will praise Thee, praise Thee with the labor of my hands

And with the bounty of my spirit!

II: DEATH

Into the valley land my feet descend, and man may not

go with me;

But Thou, O God, companion me in love that I be un-

afraid.

The dream of death has flowered in my soul and sounds of

earth fall dimly on my ears.

Slowly the sun goes westering in the hills, and the crimson

pageant of my passing hour

Flames in their deeps and moves across the sky.

Something within me reaches back to birth and fills me

with exulting.

As the waters of a river, sweep the wonders of creation

through my being,

And life and death are so inseparate I know not each from

each.

And yet a mighty fearing falls upon me.

Shadows descend and blur the crimson hills.

A wind flung from a womb of ice

Blows from the shores of nothingness.

The shadows shed their shoes of stealth;

They run in naked swiftness from the hills

Calling the hosts of darkness.

The winds sing a song of fury,

The winds arise and shout their passion down the world.

Drained in a pitiless draught

Are the splendors of the skies.

Towers of cypress touch the heights;

Even in a battlement of gloom

The towers of cypress overwhelm the heavens.

My peace is perished,

My dreams are fallen from me.

Into the night no planet speeds its glory;

The stars are drowned.

Lonely the hulk of a broken moon

Lifts its bloody sail.

Merged into rushing torrents are the shadows and the

winds;

The shadows and the winds plunge high upon the shore

And swallow all the world.

Why hast Thou hidden Thyself, O God?

Why hast Thou turned Thy face aside

And burdened me with night?

Where is my dream of death,

And where its sanctuary?

The heat of hell assails me;

I am consumed in bitterness and pain.

Reveal Thyself, O unforgetting Spirit!

Reveal Thyself that I may be enshrined

In the beauty of Thy presence.

Drive forth this mocking counterfeit of Death,

For it is Thou who art my Death, O living God,

It is Thou who art my Death, and only Thou!

My fearing passes from me:

As a heavy mantle falling from tired shoulders,

My fearing slips away. |

Candles are set at my feet that I be not lost forever.

Thou hast heard my cry, O Great Bestower!

Thou hast heard my cry, Thou hast lifted me up,

Thou hast delivered me!

Now does the hush of night lie purple on the hills.

The moon walks softly in a trance of sleep;

Her whiteness cools the passion of the skies.

I hang my quiet lute upon her curve

And let the night winds chant my requiem.

Waters of peace arise and drift me down the spaciousness

of silence and of sleep;

God lights Hs solemn watch-fires overhead to keep the

vigil of man's mystery.

In the triumph of surrender I take Thy gift of sleep.

Lean low, Thou Shepherd of my dreams; lean low to meet

me as I lift on high

The chalice of my dying.

IV: RE-BIRTH

I feel my spirit stir and half awake,

Then look in bright bewilderment at dawn.

O waking past all dreaming!

O Love Imperious that hast called me forth from out my

valley's shadow!

A mighty whirlwind, breath of the living God,

Sweeps from beyond the barricades of night, and, stooping

low,

Lifts me from out my dust and sets me free.

I feel the Power that moors me to Itself;

That keeps the rhythmic pattern of the stars;

That spins, like a fiery plaything in the air,

The earth that was my home.

My hour is great with leisure;

My day is manifest.

O clamorous world!-thy wasting fires

Have burned themselves to ashes.

O foolish pomp!-thy futile stride

As an image in a glass has passed away.

Time's mystery and menace are resolved:

The Now of Man is God's Forevermore.

My heart is as a forest treed with wonder.

The cymbals of my joyance make a stirring sound,

My singing shakes the day.

I know myself at last:

Thou, glorious One, hast revealed me to myself.

As new-born planets sang in ecstasy,

So sing the voices of my thankfulness.

I praise Thee!

I glorify Thee!

Thou art the Singer, man Thy Song;

My spirit on its summit shouts Thy name!

O Singer, Who hast sent me forth,

I am returned to Thee!